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Doug Borcoman, CSU Dominguez Hills |
Judy Swanson, CSU Channel Islands |
Michael Penney, Humboldt State University |
Paul Nozicka & Harish Chakravarthy, San Jose State University |
Enhancing Instruction |
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Doug is an Instructional Design Specialist and provides Blackboard Administrative Support in the College of Health and Human Services at CSUDH. In his "spare" time he initiated an efficient process for producing online multimedia presentations and helps faculty create pedagogically-sound and visually-stimulating course materials. It's like producing a mini-edTV show in a small file, one that can be burned onto a business card-sized CD or streamed from a server. College of HHS faculty prefer the multimedia options because they can establish a virtual presence for their students, and the technology is so friendly that 98% of students report they have no problems accessing the presentations. The instructors also appreciate the innovation because the online presentations enhance the programs and help to stimulate enrollment, and are a marketable feature in the many programs sponsored by the College. Doug also shares his expertise with other campuses by way of CATS presentations, online CVC conferences using CCCConfer, and CD tutorials. He's happy to share some of the presentations that have been utilized in various settings. A main website that contains links to several files is located at http://academictechnology.info |
New Campus Library Systems |
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Every
well-established CSU campus has the luxury of departments full of
specialists who are assigned specific tasks to accomplish major
software upgrades and systems integration. Not so at CSUCI, the newest
of the CSU campuses. Everything we do here is done almost "for the
first time" since practically nothing came before it. The monumental
task of assembling all the necessary components of the Library's
digital resources (or Digital Initiatives) were left entirely up to one
extremely talented IT professional: Judy Swanson. Since her arrival in
April 2003, Judy has successfully researched, planned, and managed the
following resources for the entire campus community (students, faculty,
staff & administrators): |
Enhancing Instruction |
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In the fall of 2003, rumors abounded among technology listserves that Blackboard might not continue its development and support of its "Basic" license. This would have forced HSU to migrate to Blackboard's enterprise license, which would have created an unaffordable seven- to ten-fold increase in the LMS budget. Since Blackboard representatives did not immediately allay the campus's concerns, Michael began to investigate open source LMS solutions and selected Moodle as being the most viable safety net should Blackboard no longer be available to faculty and students. The Moodle Development Project was originally intended to stay in the background and provide a viable backup LMS, but has blossomed and is now having a noticeable, positive impact on teaching and learning on the campus. Over 90 courses are now offered in Moodle. Many of the instructors of these courses have chosen to work with Michael so they can utilize one or more of the unique LMS components his team has created. Many of these tools have saved faculty time during their course development and administration, thereby leaving them with more time for actual teaching. Other components have increased teaching effectiveness by giving the faculty tools that are aligned with their pedagogy, such as the new Assignment Review Module and the Gradebook customization. Students benefit both from the pedagogical improvements as well as the increased time faculty have for interaction. |
University Website/Web-based Services |
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The web services team was formally created in December 2002 with the hiring of Paul Nozicka as the university's first webmaster and the unit lead, followed by Harish Chakravarthy as the web applications developer in August in 2003. Prior to this there was no formal unit designated to maintain the university's web site or to address campus-wide web services. Beginning with the university website designed by Razorfish, Paul and Harish set out to redefine the university's web presence. Their solution was developed on industry standards and built on open-source applications, also included a consistent digital identity and online branding message for the university. Building upon standards and using open-source solutions also laid the foundation for template-driven web sites that will be dynamically served from a content management system. The system also allows campus site managers and editors to maintain their individual sites via a simple WYSIWYG web-based inline editor. Other modules were developed as well, such as a faculty web wizard to help them create course and companion pages without technical skill, which is currently used by more than 325 faculty - and they"re not done yet! More information on the website redesign project can be obtained at http://www.sjsu.edu/redesign. |
CATS is a program of the CSU Center for Distributed
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